Mortain
Mortain is the twelfth mission in the Invasion of Normandy campaign of Company of Heroes. Mission Description Following the loss of Capt. MacKay, Able Company is taken off the front lines and ordered to relieve Dog Company from Mortain. Able's orders are to dig in and wait for resupply. Mission Objectives Primary Objectives 1. Hold Hill 317 Establish a defensive perimeter around Hill 317 and hold the Hill until relieved. Send out sentries to the indicated positions and fortify the Hill. Secondary Objectives 1. Hold the town of Mortain Don't let the Axis capture the central point in Mortain. Medal Objectives 1. Rescue the Rangers at the Abbey A squad of rangers is pinned down in the Abbey Blanche. Rescue them before they are killed! Walkthrough The moment the mission starts, a timer will start counting down to the end. You start out with a weird mix of max veterancy infantry and partial squads along with an M2 105mm Howitzer at the top of the hill. Important note: rather than reinforce your half-strength squads, set them to manning the various HMGs, mortars and AT guns scattered around the hill. Also, the AI will recommmend reinforcing various points, this is a bad move that will leave you dangerously overstretched, pull back to the top of the hill to consolidate your defences. Your first priority should actually be the medal objective since the attack will not start yet, in the North-Western corner of the map is a strategic objective based in an abbey area, in this area is a garrisoned Ranger squad under attack by a whole bunch of german infantry, simply attack from behind with your 2 rifleman squads to wipe them out, the rangers will be very useful in defending your base (not the hill, but your base in the town) from vehicles and infantry. Important note: hotkey your howitzer for maximum effectiveness, its best use is in denying enemy squads from capturing your points. While this is happening, start building defences, German infantry and vehicles will approach the hill from all directions, the Eastern entrances can be easily blocked with barbed wire and tank traps to create a killing field for a HMG team, dropping mines on various strategic points is also recommended. A good setup would be for 2 mortar teams to cover half a hill each, several HMG teams to cover the entrances, and at least 3 AT Guns to cover the various approaches. Most of the attack will center around the hill with scattered elements going for your base in the town, safe on population capacity by building a few Machine Gun Emplacements to cover your base while the rangers defend against vehicles. THe attack will consist primarily of infantry with a few light vehicles and tanks, the biggest danger will be snipers and mortars taking out your weapons teams, the germans will also periodically shell the top of the hill with an artillery barrage, so watch out for that as well. Make sure to periodically shift your units around to wherever you see potential gaps and you should be fine, use your howitzer to target clusters of infantry and protect your outer strategic points from germans capturing them. Near the end of the timer, the germans will send several Panzer IVs and StuGs to surround the hill, if you're not careful your howitzer may end up destroyed considering its rather exposed position. Important note: to make it easier to reinforce units, deploy an M3 Halftrack. Completing the secondary objective is fairly easy, the germans do not send too many units to try to take them, having a number of MG emplacements to counter infantry with your ranger squad holding off their tanks should be more than enough. From this point on simply hold your ground until the timer is up. Trivia * The real life battle can be read about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_L%C3%BCttich